Scheele's fame has been eclipsed by other chemists who made the same discoveries just a little earlier or who followed through on their experiments more thoroughly. Still, Scheele, who began training at age fourteen to be an apothecary has been recognized by Isaac Asimov as the greatest pharmacist in history.

Scheele was born and raised in the town of Stralsund in Swedish-controlled Pomerania. He eventually moved to Sweden, where he met and befriended many famous scientists, including chemist Johann Gottlieb Gahn (1745-1818) and mineralogist Torbern Olof Bergman (1735-1784). He worked at a series of drugstores, finally establishing his own pharmacy in 1776. Although Scheele could easily have chosen a more secure life as a professor at one of Europe's prominent universities, he preferred to practice pharmacy and to concentrate on his own experiments. He even turned down an opportunity to become the royal druggist to Prussia's Frederick II (1712-...